to you about it, I should have spoken long ago. Depend upon it, no good was ever done in this world by bullying. I know there are horses and boys who can stand a lot of flogging and be none the worse for it, though, of course, there are many who can't; but no horse should be thrashed without some reason that he can understand. He requires fair treatment, just as a man does, and unless he gets it he will turn nasty, just as a man will. When you have spoiled a horse's temper, you call him an incurably vicious brute; and when the same thing has been done to a man, he is called—what do you call me in the stables, James?"
"Never heerd you called out of yer proper name, as I can remember," answered the man, in a somewhat surly voice, for he did not relish being lectured by Jacob Stiles.
"Have you not? But I am tolerably certain that no one about the place has a good word for me."
To this assertion, which had an interrogative ring, the stolid James vouchsafed neither assent nor contradiction. Jacob sighed, and then laughed.
"Here we are at the station," he said, presently. "Good-by, James; put that in your pocket, and bear in mind what I have said to you. It is true, and you may find it useful some day or other."
The eyes of James became round with amazement, and his tongue was paralyzed; for it was nothing less than a five-pound note that Jacob had thrust into his hand. A donation so splendid, coming from such a quarter, made it impossible for him to express his feelings in words until he had handed the luggage out to the porter and had turned his horse's head round. Then he slapped his leg with his open hand, and ejaculated, aloud, "I'm dashed if that feller ain't one o' the right sort arter all!"
But the irony of the above encomium was lost to Jacob, who by that time had seated himself in an empty first-class carriage and had entered upon a long soliloquy which, with occasional breaks, lasted him all the way to Liverpool.
"Five pounds to a groom! There's a sort of pleasure in being generous, even when generosity only takes the form of giving away what can never be of the slightest use to one's self any more. I wonder whether I should have been a great philanthropist if I had been a rich man: it isn't unlikely. I wonder what sort of person my father was. He hanged himself in a garret; and in about a fortnight's time from nowHeavens! how slowly this train moves! and they call it an express. And then the voyage! Ten mortal days and nights,—how shall I live through such an eternity?
"I think I have played my part well: they will all recollect that
